How Fuel Breaks Helped Contain Two 2021 Wildfires at Timucuan Preserve

Interagency crews responded to the Red Trail Fire at Timucuan Preserve. NPS.

The fires of June 2021

• An afternoon thunderstorm in June 2021 ignited the Red Trail Fire at Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve in Florida. A fuels treatment by the Atlantic Zone Fire Management Office contained it on two sides, so firefighters had little suppression work to do — and little damage from firefighting to repair afterward.
• Two days later the Sohm Fire, another lightning fire that had smoldered unseen for days, flared up. A fuels treatment just north of its start let interagency crews respond faster.

Why the treatments were there

The groundwork was laid by a bad fire. In 2019, the Yellow Bluff Fire burned more than 600 acres and closed I-95 for 19 hours over Memorial Day weekend. It was a wake-up call.

• The preserve began mechanical treatments to break up continuous fuels, give managers more options and improve access.
• In 2020 the first treatments went in, in and beyond the Yellow Bluff burn scar, mainly to open access along old roadbeds. A buffer along those roads gave crews the option to burn out from them or to hold a fire at their edge.

The result

When the Red Trail and Sohm fires tested the treatments, firefighters cut their response times in half and could reach the fires in Type 6 wildland engines.

Sources

Based on "Effectiveness of Fuels Treatments Yields Success at Timucuan National Preserve," National Park Service Fire and Aviation Management; a work of the United States government in the public domain.